Renewing passports on line

We are able to renew Global Entry on line. A bit of a pain however once one understands the site easy to navigate. I was approved however Cheryl is pending. We might need to go to JFK for an interview.
 
I brought my renewal application to the local passport office yesterday for expedited processing to be ready for a flight on Saturday. The agent passed the application back to me, with a pen, and told me I needed to sign it. I did, but felt funny that the pen was red instead of blue or black. "If they don't care then I guess I don't care," I said to myself. This morning I got a phone call, saying I have to come back in and sign it again, in black. "But your guy gave me the red pen" I told the caller.

"Yeah, he shouldn't have done that" he said.

So I went back in today to resign the application and then will return tomorrow to pick up the new passport.

I'm not mad at them at all. I feel like I failed a psychological test where someone in authority or in uniform tells you to do something that you know is incorrect, and rather than speak up, I just did as I was told. Lesson learned. We'll see if I can use it in practice.

Relatedly, how absurd is it that a change to automate the passport applications is advertised as a Presidential order instead of it being from some mid-level manager at the passport office saying "Hey, wait a minute, I just realized we are 20 years behind the times, let's fix this!" They could even have put up a little statue of the guy (or gal) with a plaque saying "Hero of the Passport Office: first employee to realized they were hopelessly behind the times and did something about it." I suspect everyone up and down the chain was just doing my red pen thing of thinking "If my boss doesn't care then I don't care."
 
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